Saturday, February 20, 2021

No reasons to be bearish?

The nature of the market advance has been extraordinary and relentless. From a long-term perspective, the monthly MACD model flashed a buy signal last August for the broadly-based Wilshire 5000 and there are no signs of technical deterioration. This is a bull market, but sentiment has become sufficiently frothy that a reset is overdue.


The latest BoA Global Fund Manager Survey concluded that "the only reason to be bearish...is there is no reason to be bearish". As the economic outlook improved and the vaccine rollouts are on track to control the pandemic, the market's mood has shifted from despondency to mania. An immense amount of speculative froth has appeared. The market has been overrun by small uninformed YOLO (You Only Live Once) investors trading penny stocks and call options. 


In addition, the market has been presented with the spectacle of cash-starved auto maker Tesla spending its precious cash to buy Bitcoin. Not only that, software maker MicroStrategy $900 million in convertible notes at a 0% yield with the expressed intention of purchasing Bitcoin, after tapping the markets in December with a similar convertible.

However, stock prices don't just fall and sentiment reset without a fundamental narrative that investors can focus on. Here are the key risks to the bullish consensus.

The full post can be found here.

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